Grid Explorer

Explore how America's electricity grid works — from historic generation mix trends (2019–2025) to hour-by-hour grid operations across 13 regions

Choose Your Grid Region

Click a region to explore its energy data. Then choose between historic trends or hourly grid analysis.

Explore how the generation mix has changed across 7 years of EIA data.

2019
2019
2019
Every Hour of Electricity Generation in 2024
Each dot is one hour. Color shows grid emission intensity: blue = clean, red = dirty
The Clean Baseload: Nuclear + Hydro, Every Hour
Blue area = clean firm generation (nuclear + hydro). Gray area = total grid load.
A Typical Summer Day: How the Stack Dispatches
Stacked generation by source across 24 hours. Fossil fuels ramp up as demand rises.
Wind + Solar by Month: When Nature Delivers
Top two rows: wind. Bottom two rows: solar. Each tile is one month's average 24-hour profile.
Annual Average vs. Hourly Reality
Left: the single annual number. Right: every hour revealed. The average hides the chaos.
Two Hours, Same Grid, Different Worlds
A clean hour vs. a dirty hour. The resource mix changes dramatically.
Where the Energy Comes From
Energy flow from generation sources to the grid. Clean vs. fossil, in TWh.
Act I

The Grid Never Sleeps

Right now — this very second — grid operators are orchestrating a symphony of thousands of generators to deliver electricity to millions of homes, hospitals, data centers, and factories.

Every hour, they must perfectly balance supply with demand. The margin for error is razor-thin: even a small imbalance can cascade into blackouts.

TWh in 2024
Hours/year
GW avg load

What you see is every single hour of electricity generation in 2024 — 8,760 dots arranged in a grid. Each dot represents the grid's total output during one hour, sized by generation and colored by emission intensity.

Blue and green dots are the cleanest hours — nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar carried the load. Orange and red dots are the dirtiest: fossil generators were ramped to maximum.

Scroll to discover why annual accounting is misleading.

Act II

The Baseload Foundation

Nuclear and hydroelectric power form the grid's clean, firm foundation. They run 24/7/365 regardless of weather.

The chart shows all 8,760 hours of demand (gray area) with the clean baseload (blue area) overlaid. Look at the blue band — it barely moves. That's the steady, unwavering stream of carbon-free power.

GW avg clean firm
24/7
Always on
Act III

When Demand Rises, Fossil Fuels Answer

This stacked area chart shows a typical summer day: 24 hours of generation broken out by fuel source. As demand climbs each morning, fossil generators ramp up. First efficient gas, then dirtier units.

Clean (0 kg CO₂/MWh)Dirty (high emissions)

The emission rate of every MWh changes dramatically by hour.

Cleanest hours
Dirtiest hours
Act IV

The Renewable Revolution — It's Not That Simple

Wind and solar have transformed the grid. But they generate when nature allows, not when needed.

The heatmap grid shows 12 months of average 24-hour generation profiles — wind on top, solar on the bottom. Summer midday: solar floods the grid. Winter evenings: almost nothing. The pattern is dramatic and seasonal.

Act V

The Annual Accounting Illusion

Annual Scope 2 gives one number — the single colored tile on the left showing the annual average emission rate in kg CO₂/MWh. It looks clean. Reassuring.

But the dot grid on the right reveals the reality: every single hour has a different emission rate. Some hours are nearly zero-carbon. Others are heavily fossil-fueled. The average hides the chaos.

Avg fossil share
High-fossil hours
Act VI

Every Hour Tells a Different Story

Same grid. Two hours. Radically different resource mixes. The stacked bars show the fuel breakdown for this region's single cleanest and dirtiest hours of 2024.

The clean hour is dominated by nuclear and renewables. The dirty hour has fossil fuels stacked high. Look at how the total height and color composition change.

Hourly accounting reveals what annual numbers hide.

Act VII

The Path Forward

The transition: from reliable + affordable to reliable + affordable + clean.

Hourly matching tells markets: “We need clean power at 6 PM in January, not just sunny April afternoons.”

This drives investment in firm clean power, storage, and demand flexibility.

Every Region Has a Story. Every Hour Matters.

Data from EIA Form 930 Hourly Electric Grid Monitor, covering 2019–2025 annual trends and 2024 hourly generation across 13 grid regions.